Why can't I leave..

[crazedncrazymom]

I have been miserably married for almost 20 years to a man with BPD/NPD who has no heart or soul or thought for anyone other than himself.  I tell him I want a divorce.  I tell him I'm miserable with him.  I tell him he's killed my soul with his anger and selfishness.  He says... . stay.  Please don't leave.  I say ok. 

What the hell is wrong with me that I stay in this situation? 

The above sentence describes our relationship from day one.  I remember just before we got married he was in the middle of changing careers.  His current job knew he would be leaving soon and needed to lay off some people so of course he was the logical choice.  He was going through that... . can't get a job because he had no experience and can't get experience because he couldn't get a job thing.  I knew that and understood.  We could pay our bills and he was actively looking so it was no big deal to me.  I tried to be supportive of his frustration.  Every day when I came home from my job as an administrative assistant he would badger me to tell him what I did that day.  He wouldn't let up till I told him... . typical stuff... created a spreadsheet, typed letters, answered phones etc.  Then he would tell me how I did such stupid work even a monkey could do it.  This happened EVERY FREAKIN day.  Still I married him.  Know what kept me there?  We had gone into debt and bought 10000 worth of furniture and I didn't want to leave him stuck with such a big bill.  The funny thing is... I would never have bought 10000 worth of furniture.  I would have bought a cheap couch, coffee table and new tv (his really was crappy).  Still though I felt responsible foolishly or rightly thinking that he bought all that stuff to impress me and I couldn't just bail on him with an apartment lease he couldn't pay by himself and a big fat credit bill to pay so I married him. 

We would have these HUGE blow out fights... I'm talking world war 3 ... get out your nukes and just blow the crap out of each other fights.  They would always start over something so incredibly stupid and small and petty.  Seriously we had a 3 hour fight over which zoo (Washington d.c. or central park) had sexually dysfunctional polar bears.  I kept saying it doesn't matter.  It's not a big deal.  Who freakin cares all that much.  Just agree to disagree.  He wouldn't stop because I wouldn't say he was right.  I wouldn't say he was right because I deserve to have my own opinion of which zoo had sexually dysfunctional polar bears.  Seriously, a person's gotta draw a line somewhere and there ya go... . mine was sexually dysfunctional polar bears and where they live. 

Even when his brother and his wife came over still he kept yelling at me as I sat there holding our newborn son with tears running down my face.  They tried stopping him and it took his brother a half hour of talking to him to get him to stop.  That's an old fight.  That one happened almost 18 years ago.  It's the one that sticks out the most because it was so stupid and so typical of our fights back then.  I couldn't get out of the fight and didn't want to be in it but still I fought just because I deserve to have an opinion.

I know what ya'll are thinking... . why didn't you just get out of the house? Right?  Wrong!  If I leave in an argument he'd just get in his car and chase me down till I stop so he can yell more and then yell about me leaving on top of whatever it was he was yelling about. 

He would yell and rant and there were no boundaries... nothing to cruel to say.  When I would say screw this... I'm leaving you... he would cry and say stay.  Please don't leave me.  I'd say ok.

We don't have the world war 3 fights anymore.  We barely hit world war 1 in a huge fight.  I can leave in the middle of an argument and am not chased down.  Mostly because he always wins every single fight.  I don't win.  I lose them all.  He says stay... . I say ok.  But I'm so unhappy.   I need to be happy.  I deserve to be happy.   

[heartandwhole]

Hi crazedandcrazymom,

Your fights sound terrible, and painful to go through.  I can really understand your frustration with this situation, especially after so many years. 

We all know it's not as simple as just walking out the door.  There is a complex bond that has been in place for nearly two decades.  Change will happen with you, and that takes a lot of courage– I really admire you for going there.

He says stay, you say ok.  Can you think of something you are getting out of this pattern?

This is a brave post, and we're here for you. 

[froggy]

Crazed... . you sure your not me and married to the same guy?

Except I'm 33 years in... never won an argument or heard sorry for any of that time.

Like you... I've stayed. For all the wrong reasons... . stayed.

KNEW it was a mistake to get married... . did any way... . to save him the embarrassment of me walking 2 months before the wedding.

KNEW I had to leave a year in... . but stayed and kept staying over the next 32 years everytime I KNEW I should get out for my own well being and that of my children.

So your not alone.

Things started changing a couple years ago with 50 rounding the corner.

Then a friend started pointing a few things out... that I wasn't as worthless as he'd made me feel and that maybe the fact "I" couldn't see it was a bigger problem than him not seeing it.

Then a couple months ago I had to leave and be with my sister who has terminal cancer for 5 weeks... and seeing what living with her pwBPD for 40 years has done has pushed me to get out... .

But still I find it hard to just leave... I know I have to... . but I know I have to plan... to be ready to just go because when I do there can be no looking back... no listening for the plea to stay... . I've stayed for him all these years... . now I have to leave for me... . what's left of me... before there is nothing left... before I'm a shell of myself dying in a hospital bed thinking it's the only way out of this hell.

I have to keep reminding myself of the world war 3 fights... the arguments you can never win... the devaluation... . unlike some here I never got the honeymoon side of things... . just less crappy enough that it seems better than the usual hell.

I deserve better and so do you!

Find yourself again... . your in there... then fight like hell to get out and save what's left.

[maxen]

hi crazed. i'm so so sorry for the pain you've been put through. i really hope you find your way to happiness.

but there's nothing wrong with you. i wasn't exactly ecstatic in my marriage either. i pondered what life would be like alone. i wrote a letter 6 years in as if to her parents detailing why i was leaving. i never sent it and i never left and i would never have left, short of a complete re-evaluation by both of us in an open, honest way. she "solved" our problems by deceit and infidelity and departure.

and after that i discovered just how entwined marriage makes two lives. i never imagined such pain could come from dissolving a relationship that wasn't by any means perfect or even always happy (though it wasn't 'dissolving' really, it was one party tearing two lives in half). i never imagined all the ways i felt connected to her. mine was 7 years, yours is 20. of course you hesitate.

i don't know how much wisdom i have to offer but you have all my sympathy.

[livednlearned]

I'm so unhappy.   I need to be happy.  I deserve to be happy.   

Hi Crazed,

Oof, it hurts to live like this. It's a lot of pain, a lot of emotional distress.

What does being happy mean to you?

[Cloudy Days]

I am 8 years into my relationship with my husband. I feel broken for being in this relationship, I know that our entire relationship is a screwed up mess, I am screwed up, he is screwed up. He tells me to leave almost everyday. When I pack my bag and tell him ok, I am done. He either gets irate and bully's me until I break down. Or he starts crying and begging me not to leave. The crying and begging really gets to me. I have so much guilt over leaving him that I just cannot bring myself to do it. He is a mess of a person, he is making me a mess of a person. I spend my sessions in therapy crying the entire time because I am so confused. I know what I want, but I don't know how to make myself do it. I don't want to hurt him. I am starting to accept that loosing this relationship is not the end of the world. But it sure as heck feels like it. I have such an attachment to him, but it's all just dysfunctional and it's eroding away my life. I will never understand why I am so attached to someone who makes my life a living hell. Everything would be better without him, my job would be less stressful, I would have more money, I would be able to make friends again, I wouldn't have someone telling me how terrible I am, I would be able to sleep every night for 8 hours instead of 3-5 hours. I would be able to see my parents whenever I wanted. But I still stay, I still want him. I know something is wrong with me for wanting him but it doesn't stop it from happening. I just keep thinking about how long it has taken me to wake up, and how unhappy I am to get to this point. What happens if I stay for a few more years, it hasn't gotten any better with therapy. So he's just going to keep eroding away my self confidence and setting up the mind games to keep me hooked on him. I don't know what to do. I feel insane.

[maxsterling]

this is a good topic.  It feels like everyone around us, including our own guts, tell us we are in abusive relationships, that we deserve better, and we should just leave.  Yet, it's still difficult, and we stay.  I'm a year in, not married, and still feel stuck.  And I've had things thrown at me, screamed at, and punched.   And I still stay for one more chance, and am not sure why.  I certainly love her, but I also know I could love again, and know I could do better.  And I know that the breakup would be painful for awhile, but I know it would get easier with each passing day.  Yet, I still stay.  She's working on herself.  Things have improved, but maybe this is just an "up" cycle. 

My strategy right now is to just gain strength, set boundaries one at a time.  Reclaim myself.  remind myself that I am a good person deserving of happiness.  She may respond positively and my relationship will improve, or she may respond negatively and pull away.  I just need to take things one step at a time, because I know I cannot live like this forever.

[livednlearned]

I can see almost a mirror emotional image of my marriage to N/BPDx in my FOO, especially with my dad and brother. Combined (brother is uBPD, father is NPD traits), they equal N/BPDx.

I ended up leaving N/BPDx. What I realize now is that there was an emotional part of me that was stuck at a certain age. Eight? Nine? I'm not sure exactly.

Sometimes I think that's what the fear was all about. Because I knew it was dangerous and unhealthy to stay. Rationally, I knew that touching the hot stove was going to burn every single time.

But emotionally, I was coming from this place where I was only 8 years old. How can a little kid leave? Also, like a lot of people here, I had this crazy idea that I was responsible for everyone else's life, even as a kid. If I didn't do xyz, my brother would do abc, and that would be all my fault. Whether suicide, or no friends, or whatever.

Our closest people, our family, the people who teach us what love is -- together with them, we created this script. Now we're out, and we're adults, and we have this script we don't want to follow, and it takes a lot of effort to stop the show while we're on stage and turn to the audience and say, Hey, this is the wrong script. I don't want to do this anymore. I'm going to write a better one.